The z/OS operating system is a highly secure, scalable, high-performance enterprise operating system on which to build and deploy Internet and Java-enabled applications, providing a comprehensive and diverse application execution environment. An introduction of LAN-free storage operation in a z/OS based server requires tape volumes be written to and read by storage agents on a distributed operating system (e.g., AIX, Sun, or WINDOWS). These same tape volumes must also be managed by the z/OS based server for back-end storage-management operations (e.g., data movement within the z/OS based server). A challenge for the computer industry is to efficiently manage access to these tape volumes by both distributed operating systems over a storage area network (“SAN”) and the z/OS operating system.